QB 52 
.P24 
Copy 1 



NONEXISTENCE OF 



Projectile Forces in Nature. 



A PAPER READ BEFORE 
THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 



IMI-A-IR-Cia:, 1872. 



By JOHN A. v PARKER, 

OP NEW YORK. 



NEW YORK: 
JOHN WILEY & SON 

15 ASTOR PLAGE. 
1872. 



^$r° 



NON-EXISTENCE OF 

1 



Projectile Forces in Nature. 



A PAPER BEAD BEFORE 

THE AMERICAN" INSTITUTE, 



WLJ^ttCtt, 1872. 



By JOHN A. PARKER, 

OF NEW YORK. 



,16' 



NEW YORK: 
JOHN WILEY & SON, 

15 ASTOR PLACE. 

1872. 
£2 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 

By JOHN A. PARKER, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Poole & Maclattchxan, Printers, 
205-213 East Twelfth Street, 
New York. 



Q? 



&s 



NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. 



In a paper which I read two years ago, before the 
American Geographical and Statistical Society, on the 
subject of Polar Magnetism, in which the argument was, 
that the Magnetic Poles revolve about the Geographical 
Poles, and that Polar Magnetism is of planetary and 
celestial origin, I indicated a doubt of the existence of 
any projectile force in nature, and its consequent absence 
in the motions of the Heavenly bodies. 

In that paper I said something of the "universal law of 
precession " prevailing throughout all the Heavenly 
bodies, the greater over the less, as a means provided by 
Nature in connection with magnetic attraction, to make 
motion continuous. 

In the paper which I shall now read, I propose to say a 
few words on the non-existence of projectile forces, and to 
give some practical proofs of the theory advanced. 

It will be seen at once that if the universality of preces- 
sion is the cause of the continuance of motion in the 
Heavenly bodies, it constitutes the first established truth, 
which confirms a doubt of the existence of a projectile 
force. Nature never wastes her powers by supplying two 



4 NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. 

forces where only one is necessary, and if we once admit 
the existence of magnetic attraction (gravitation), to pro- 
duce motion, and the universal law of precession to make 
it continuous, we have then accumulated all the powers 
that are necessary, and why should anything more be 
required ? 

The idea of a projectile force has its origin, no doubts 
in our knowledge of the fact, that our own Earth, in her 
orbit round the Sun, passes over an amount of space many 
times greater than her revolutions on her axis would 
measure, and at first sight a projectile movement appears 
to be an inevitable necessity, and to account for it ration- 
ally has exercised the science, ingenuity, skill, and judg- 
ment of the best minds which the world has afforded, in 
centuries past. I shall not attempt to repeat what has 
been said or written on the subject ; it is sufficient for our 
present reasoning to know that by no ingenuity of skill 
have the believers in an active projectile force (and that 
belief has, I think, been universal) ever been able to bring 
their theory within the operation of any natural law 
known to exist. It is reasonable to suppose that the laws 
of Nature, seen in our own world, are the laws of the 
universe, and we have no right to assume the existence 
anywhere of laws which are contrary to Nature here. But 
then comes the certain truth, that the Earth does move 
through space, both positively and relatively to other bod- 
ies, faster than her diurnal revolution on her axis would 
carry her, and how shall it be accounted for ? 



NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. D 

The result which all who have reasoned on the subject 
have finally come to is in substance like this. They 
represent the Deity as occupying some limited space, sit- 
ting on a vast throne, high and lifted up, engaged in his 
work, as a man would work with his hands, creating 
worlds, which he throws off to the right or the left, giving 
them an impetus which, for some unknown reason, is to 
last forever, and to be their guide through illimitable 
space. 

They thus, in fact, malign the Deity, by likening him 
to man, and to His own created things. They forget 
that right and left are only relative terms to a stationary 
being of limited power, and presence, and that neither 
height nor depth has any existence in the infinity of 
space. But the question comes back again, how else can 
they account for the vast movements of the Earth and the 
Planets which we know exist, and see daily performed. , 

The way is then open for imagination to conceive a 
method by which these movements can be accounted for, 
but it must be a method consistent with the natural forces 
known to exist, consistent with the known movements of 
the Heavenly bodies, and contradictory of no known truth 
whatever. 

Imagination is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, 
power of the mind which God has given us : we identify 
it with thought, but it is superior to thought, and always 
leads it ; it is creative as well as suggestive in its power ; 
it presents to us the images of things as perfect as the 



NO PROJECTILE EOECE IN NATURE. 

realities, and, no matter from what distance they may 
come, her flight to bring them is instantaneous as the 
lightning. Although wayward at times, she is always the 
willing handmaid of reason, and under that guidance, 
Imagination is always the pathway to discovery. We 
must invoke her help, then, in our present dilemma, and go 
wandering for a while in the realms of space, with reason 
and imagination alone for companionship. 

I think I can best lead your minds along with me in 
this wandering, by relating a story of fact. I was sitting 
on the piazza on the west side of my country house, to 
witness the splendors of a summer sunset. The air was 
cool and refreshing, and I sat till twilight had deepened 
into night, when Imagination assumed the reins of thought, 
and all that here follows is of her suggestion. 

u What mean these glittering worlds in view, that 
downward slope their west'ring wheels % " They are all 
apparently moving — By what means ? For what purpose, 
and to what end? But astronomers say it is we that 
move, not they, and astronomers must be right, else how 
could such journeys be accomplished ? But there is no 
appearance of our moving — the air is still around us, — it 
is even moving gently in the same direction with us. If 
we were in such rapid motion as is supposed, the air would 
rush by us in the opposite direction with a force that 
would annihilate us. The atmosphere must then move 
with us. Astronomers say it does, and astronomers must 
be right. 



NO PKOJECTILE FORCE EN" NATURE. 7 

How high is our atmosphere ? Philosophers tell us that 
it is only forty miles ! What is next to it ? Where is the 
dividing line ? There must be great friction on that line 
if the same order of nature is obeyed there as here. 
Philosophers have again told us that there is nothing next 
to our atmosphere, and that is the reason of a continuance 
of the projectile motion, because there is nothing to stop 
it. Are we then moving through space on the same prin- 
ciple as through an exhausted tube? In that case we 
should not move in an orbit, but in a straight line, until 
we should go crash against some other planet, shattering 
ourselves or them. And these same philosophers have, in 
their imaginations, gravely provided this mode of destruc- 
tion for us. But this is not in harmony with Nature, or 
our own motion, and besides " Nature abhors a vacuum." 
It cannot be, therefore, that we are projected thus through 
space. 

There is the Moon above us shining brightly. She is 
moving in the same direction that we are, and she moves 
faster through space than we do. She accompanies the 
Earth in her orbit round the Sun, and at the same time she 
goes completely round the Earth relatively to the Sun, 
every twenty-nine and a half days. She has kept the 
same relative position to our Earth in all her vast journeys 
of thousands of years. By what principle are they thus 
held together? Have we any evidence of the existence 
between the Earth and the Moon of any medium but the 
common atmosphere in whatever rarefied state that may 



8 NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. 

be ? Must we not suppose, then, that such atmospheres fill 
the whole space between them? Are not the Earth and 
the Moon, then, a complete system by themselves, revolving 
together from the beginning of time as one, yet forming a 
part of another and higher system, and that again still 
higher, forever upward and onward, till it shall reach the 
Throne of God ! It appears to me, therefore, that the Earth 
and the Moon form a separate and independent system in 
themselves, though tributary to one higher. Can there be 
any dividing line between the Moon's atmosphere and 
ours ? Is it not more probable that they are united and 
move together in mingling, flowing currents, like the ocean 
currents of this globe, which by their motion and min- 
gling, are made to assist in preserving the world's balance? 

In that case the Earth would then be the centre, and the 
Moon's path the circumference of one inseparable moving 
orb. By the laws which regulate motion and magnitude 
the Earth would then move through her orbit, not by attrac- 
tion to the concrete Earth alone, but to the great luminous 
orb which should include the Moon's path, and all between 
that and the Earth, and this, perhaps, a Sun to other worlds; 
then it would follow that the Earth's orbit round the Sun 
should be measured by the revolutions of the Moon's orbit 
round the Earth. This is a new idea, it is a grand one, — 
it is startling. I must look to it and see if it is true. 

Imagination has now done her work, — she has led our 
thoughts, she has created a figure and presented the moving 
image to our mind of the Earth revolving round the Sun 



NO PROJECTILE FORCE IX NATURE. 9 

and measuring the distance performed by the value of the 
circumference of the Moon's orbit, and, having no more to 
do, Imagination now bids us to prove our intelligence. 

I retire immediately to my room, and not to make my 
story too long, after a variety of defective and erroneous 
calculations I at length arrived at these results : 

The Sun, as ascertained by my Quadrature, is distant 
from our Earth 92285568, of those parts of which the di- 
ameter of the Earth is 7912. We call them miles. The di- 
ameter of the Earth's orbit is then 184591136 of such 
miles. Its circumference is therefore 579847623+ of the 
same miles. In passing round the Sun the Earth revolves 
on her axis 365.21225 times. In so doing she gains one 
revolution =1. In the same period the Moon revolves 
about the Earth 12.36S26. In doing so she gains one 
revolution of the Earth. Total of revolutions, 379.61151 -\ 

These revolutions are all of them solar days, each one 
of which is greater than the revolution of a circle in space 
in the proportion of 5184 to 5153 and therefore as 5153 : 
5184: 379.61151=381.895, and the circumference of 
the Earth's orbit being 579847623+ 4-381.895 gives 
1518343 miles for the circumference of the Moon's orbit, 
and the diameter of 1518243 + is 483303 + half equals 
241651 which is the Moon's distance from us. Now ob- 
serve that this distance is of such parts as compose the 
Earth's diameter reckoned at 7912 miles, and, if there is 
any error in that diameter of the Earth, then there is an 
equal proportional error in this distance. And in my 



10 NO PROJECTILE FOECE IN NATURE. 

opinion the diameter of the Earth should be considered as 
7853 + miles, and in that case the Moon's distance will be 
239838 and the Sun's distance will be 91597392 miles. 
The reasons for all these conditions will be apparent to any 
one who will take the trouble to examine them. 

In the problem to determine the Sun's distance, I have 
taken the diameter of the Earth at 7912 miles, because 
that is the sum set down in the books as ascertained by 
the measurement of a degree on the Equator. But be- 
cause in the problem to determine the Sun's distance I 
have taken the Earth as " Unit," I am of the opinion that 
the diameter should be taken as .7853+ or one quarter 
the circumference of one diameter, and particularly this 
should be so, as the calculations are all made in reference 
to motion. This gives a difference in the diameter of the 
Earth of between 58 and 59 miles, and I think the last 
named sum (7853 -f) is the most accurate. 

Astronomers say that the Moon's distance from us is a 
fraction less than 239,000 miles, but theirs is only an 
approximation, and they admit a liability to error equal to 
one or two thousand miles. And again their measure- 
ment is from the centre of the Earth, to the centre of the 
Moon, and it is self-evident that our measurement as first 
given includes the Moon's whole diameter, and her atmos- 
phere which moves with her, and this being considered it 
will increase their distance or diminish ours ten or twelve 
hundred miles, and astronomers admit a possible error 
greater than that difference would show. But if we 



NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN" NATURE. 11 

admit an error in the diameter of the Earth equal to that 
above stated, we shall then approximate to the latest 
estimate of the Moon's distance by astronomers almost 
exactly. Now which shall we accept for the Moon's 
distance? the measurement of astronomers w T ith its lia- 
bility to error of a couple of thousand miles or so, or my 
hypothesis, which, if true, gives the exact distance to a 
mile \ I think the evidence is all in favor of the hy- 
pothesis, which makes the Earth to revolve about the Sun 
on the value of the circumference of the Moon's orbit, 
this result being produced by the natural laws of motion, 
and the attraction of magnetism (or gravitation, if you 
please to call it such) with the universal law of precession 
to make motion continuous, and not by any imaginary 
projectile force which does violence to Nature. 

The Sun's distance from the Earth was formerly con- 
sidered to be 95,000,000 miles, some have said 96,000,000 ; 
here again astronomers admitted a possible error of one 
or two millions of miles. La Place thought it was within 
-gL. of the truth. Of late, however, they have come to 
the conclusion that the distance is much less, and as 
deduced from the angle of parallax, it has by some been 
stated a fraction under 92,000,000, and I hear that much 
anxiety is felt to ascertain the fact, by observing the 
transit of Yenus to happen in 1874. 

I determined the Sun's distance by my Quadrature 
published in 1851, to be 92,2S5,568 miles such as compose 
the Earth's diameter reckoned at 7,912 miles, and I wait 



12 NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. 

the result of the coming observations of the transit 
without fear of contradiction. It was not until a dozen 
years after the publication of my Quadrature that the 
change w T as made in the estimate of the Sun's distance, 
and then without credit to my earlier demonstration. 

But we need not wait for the transit to learn the truth. 
The mechanical properties of numbers, which Archimedes 
threw away and which all astronomers now throw away 
as useless, will help us out of the difficulty. If we admit 
the hypothesis that the Earth revolves about the Sun on 
the value of the circumference of the Moon's orbit (and I 
do not see how we can help admitting it, unless we first 
deny the unity of the Earth and the Moon, as constituting 
a perfect and distinct system, and unless we deny also the 
well established truth that the Heavenly bodies are gov- 
erned by laws that regulate their distance and motion 
relative to each other, precisely according to their relative 
magnitudes, density, etc.), then it will follow, from the 
mechanical properties of numbers, that knowing how 
many revolutions of the Earth and Moon are performed 
(381,895) in the passage over the Earth's orbit, if we 
divide that number into the Sun's distance (which is the 
radius of the Earth's orbit), the product will be the radius 
of the Moon's orbit. 

If, then, we want to know whether the Sun is 95,000,000 
of miles distant from us, we will divide 95,000,000 by 
381.895, the number of revolutions of the Earth and the 
Moon, and that will give 248,759 miles as the Moon's dis- 



SO PROJECTILE FORCE IS NATURE. 13 

tance ; and we know from observation, aside from our own 
theory, that it is not 248,759 miles, and that it does not 
differ much from 240,000, and by the same means we then 
know, also, that the Sun is not 95,000,000 of miles from 
us. Again, knowing approximately the Moon's distance to 
be about from 240,000 miles, if we take that as radius, and 
multiply it by the number of revolutions which the Earth 
and the Moon perform (381,895) in passing over the 
Earth's entire orbit, the product will be the Sun's distance 
or the radius of the Earth's orbit. And here again we 
see that the Sun is not 95,000,000 of miles from us, and, 
moreover, that its distance is not greater than the sum we 
have given it, viz., 92,2S5,568 of those parts of which the 
Earth's diameter is 7,912, which we call miles. Again, 
knowing the Moon's distance, we can calculate the cir- 
cumference of her orbit, and, multiplying that by the 
number of revolutions, will give us the Earth's orbit 
round the sun. 

These truths are all so perfectly simple as scarcely 
to need a diagram to illustrate them, but as all may not 
see the truth quite clearly I have prepared here a dia- 
gram to illustrate the power of numbers as applicable 
to our theory. 

Let us consider the larger circle as the Earth's orbit, 
with the Sun in the centre, the lesser circle is the Moon's 
orbit with the Earth in the centre. Now let us suppose 
that the diameter of the lesser circle is 1, and the diam- 
eter of the greater circle is 12, then in the lesser re vol v- 



14 NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. 

ing about the greater the lesser will make 12 revolutions. 
Then divide the number of revolutions 12, into 6, the ra- 
dius of the Earth's orbit, the result is .5, which is the ra- 
dius of the Moon's orbit. Again, if you know the Moon's 




distance, and multiply it by the number of revolutions re- 
quired to pass round the Sun, it will give you the Sun's 
distance or the radius of the Earth's orbit. And if you 
know the Moon's distance you can calculate the circum- 
ference of her orbit, and, multiplying that by the number 
of revolutions required to pass round the Sun, it will give 
you the Earth's orbit. If you know the Moon's distance, 
and divide it into the radius of the Earth's orbit, it will 
give you the number of revolutions of the Moon in her or- 
bit required to pass round the Sun, and these are just the 
things which the Earth and the Moon together perform 



NO PROJECTILE FORCE IN NATURE. 15 

every year in the fulfilment of their respective journeys 
round the Sun. 

Divested of the lumber which Science has given these 
questions, it looks too simple to be believed, but you may 
alter your proportions and carry your numbers and 
diameters to hundreds of millions, as you please, and still 
you will find numbers true to those mechanical proper- 
ties. 

Admit the hypothesis, then, as in fact we have already 
proved it, tl^at the Earth revolves round the Sun on the 
value of the circumference of the Moon's orbit, and we 
then know the Sun's distance, without waiting till 1874 to 
learn the confused results of the vast outlay for observing 
the transit of Yenus ; and what is of much greater impor- 
tance, we have learned by this examination that because 
our Earth revolves about the Sun, on the value of the cir- 
cumference of the Moon's orbit, the Earth being in the 
centre, the Earth therefore moves evenly through space, 
as the centre of that revolving orb, put in motion by 
the attraction of magnetism (gravitation) and kept in 
motion by the universal law of the Sun's precession, and 
therefore there is no such thing in Nature as a projectile 
force, and especially there is none in the motion of our 
Earth round the Sun. 

John A. Parker. 



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